“A season ago, when the Mets listened to offers for Niese, the pitcher might not have been considered worth a sizable offer. A young starter needs to show ‘consistency for clubs to be comfortable,’ one executive said.

“Has he done enough this season to show that quality? The Mets will likely explore as much this winter.”

The whole piece is worth a read. But it’s also worth stepping back and considering exactly what trading Niese means.

For one thing, Niese has been a consistent starting pitcher for three years now. And unlike 2010 and 2011, he looks to be finishing strong.

Accordingly, that deal the Mets signed him to this spring appears to be a bargain. Niese will be owed three million dollars in 2013, five million in 2014, seven million in 2015 and nine million in 2016. The team also holds a ten million dollar option in 2017 and eleven million in 2018. So if Niese stays this good, he’ll be a bargain through most of the rest of the decade. Even eleven million dollars is a solid value for the kind of pitching Niese gave the Mets in 2012. According to Fangraphs, his 2011 was worth $12 million; his 2012 has been worth $9.7 million already.

All this is to say that Niese is a good bet to be an asset for the Mets any time between now and 2018. If the idea in building a contending team, ideally, is to mass as many good players at similar ages together at the same time, then there’s really no plan the Mets can have between now and 2018 that shouldn’t involve putting players around Niese. Not because he’s dominant, but because he stands a very good chance of being one of those good players.

Now obviously, this comes with the caveat that an offer which bowls the Mets over is one to consider. But if the return is just a good prospect or two, it leads to the question: just what are the Mets building toward? And if Niese is expendable because his upcoming peak doesn’t fit the time horizon of when the Mets expect to be good, just why are the Mets keeping David Wright beyond 2013, when he’ll be 31, or R.A. Dickey, when he’ll be 39?

This is not an endorsement for failing to retain either of them. Instead, it is the natural follow to failing to do things like keep Jose Reyes around, or add other talent to the major league club for several years now. It’s how a team falls into endless rebuilding: let a few parts go, see the major league team fall into disrepair, and what’s the point of adding talent?

I’ve had no shortage of discussions on Twitter with people who argued the Mets might as well have let Jose Reyes go, since they weren’t going to contend with Reyes on the team anyway. And that’s, of course, a ridiculous way to evaluate a player’s worth to a team. No one player’s acquisition or retention would have meant contention for the 2012 Mets. Use that standard, and no player will ever be retained, thus putting the Mets further and further from contention, and continuing the cycle.

The flip side to that argument is equally fallacious- that a team must do something. But what major league teams ought to do, regardless of where they fall in the rebuilding cycle, is to acquire and retain players who can be valuable to them for many years. Reyes, an elite shortstop in his 20s, is one such player. He signed a six-year deal with the Marlins. If the Mets don’t have a plan that calls for them to contend by year 3-4 of that deal, they aren’t doing it right.

The same is true for Niese. Witness this quote from McCullough, an absolutely accurate one:

“Players like second baseman Daniel Murphy and outfielder Lucas Duda will garner some interest this winter. But they will only return so much. ‘Nobody’s really going to give you an impact guy for a non-impact guy,’ one executive said.”

In other words, the Mets have let most of their valuable players go. They won’t get anything of value for Duda or Murphy. But with Niese, they can flip him for a couple of prospects, surround them with… well, whatever happens to be on hand. Maybe Matt Harvey can replace Dickey’s production, and perhaps Zack Wheeler can turn into Jon Niese or better.

And in a few years, they can be a few pieces away, and in need of a consistent, effective starter like Jon Niese. Or things don’t go well-they often don’t with young pitching, hence the desire of many other teams to add a pitcher like Niese.

Howard Megdal is the Lead Writer for the LoHud Mets Blog and Writer At Large for Capital New York. He covers baseball, basketball, and soccer for these and numerous other publications. His new book, "Wilpon's Folly," is available as an e-book at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. Follow the LoHud Mets Blog on Twitter @lohudmets. Follow Howard on Twitter @HowardMegdal.

5 Comments

Jesse

I dunno. If there is one area where the Mets have flexibility to trade, it’s starting pitching. I’m not saying the Mets can contend next year, the team’s lack of virtually anything in the OF department – both currently and in the immediate pipeline – is a glaring weakness. If Niese could be traded for a major league or close-to-major-league outfielder who is similarly young and cost-controlled, it would seem to be a good trade for the Mets that wouldn’t necessarily compromise them significantly going forward given that they have pretty good starting pitching depth and you can only start 5 guys. Again, not saying that this turns them into a contender for 2013, but I think they’d probably win more games given that any dropoff there would be between Niese and his replacement in the rotation would likely be outweighed by the gain in OF production.

It all makes sense. BUT…only if the Mets really have a plan. As a fan, the idea of a big market team trading away a 25 yr old left handed pitcher…well…why? When DO the Mets plan on being ready to contend? This isn’t Kansas City or Pittsburgh after all. I’m all for building the right way, but I’d like to see some progress towards contending within the next 2-3 years. Ahh, the life of a Mets fan…

Doesn’t make any sense at all to trade Niese. He’s a 25 year old top half of rotation starter !!!!! I know people are excited by Harvey’s 5 minutes with the big club, Wheeler’s good season…..in the minors…...and the ‘potential’ of mejia and familia. But its still baseball, a league which has about 50 rounds in a draft every year for a reason. It’s because 95% of their picks/top prospects don’t pan out. Niese is now a proven major league starter.

In no way, Jose, are the Wilpons going to go along with trading a reasonably effective starting lefthander who will make 3 to 5 million a year for some proven outfielder at big bucks no matter what, and they wouldn’t have the nerve to trade him for prospects. You’ll get nothing for Duda, and little for Murphy. Matter of fact, you’ll get nothing for anyone except Wright and possibly Davis, and their two young pitchers, but the three latter are being paid so little, they won’t let them go, either. When the Bay and Santana contracts expire, they’ll throw a little money around. Not before.